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She swallowed down the nausea as Casper continued.
“This all points to Darius’s conclusion that it was a professional hit being the correct one. Unfortunately, Mia walked in on them before the men were ready to leave.”
“But why?” Mia frowned. “What could Giles Fletcher possibly have done to provoke such a savage reaction?”
He seemed like such nice and innocuous person. He always paid her weekly bill on time, which probably meant he did the same with his other expenses. He occasionally warned her he would be out for the evening or was going away for the weekend, implying he had friends. On those occasions, he paid her extra to spend more time with Honey. He’d been sad about his mother’s death, of course, and a little bemused as to what he was going to do with her dog long-term. But Mia hadn’t sensed that he was overly worried about anything in particular.
“What could Mr. Fletcher possibly have done for someone to want to—to kill him.” She still found it hard to remember the body she’d seen lying in all that blood.
Casper shrugged. “I might have been able to tell you that if his laptop wasn’t also missing.”
“He does have one,” Mia confirmed. “He takes it to work with him every weekday morning and returns with it at night.”
“It isn’t in the apartment now,” Casper mused. “Which means we can only speculate as to the reason why someone might want to arrange a hit on the prestigious divorce lawyer he apparently is.”
“Which is?” she prompted when Casper didn’t add anything to the comment.
“A disgruntled ex-wife or husband? Or maybe it had nothing to do with his work and he’d racked up gambling debts with one of the mob factions?”
“Maybe Darius can ask them that?” She grimaced. “He says you’re all acquainted with the Russian and Italian Mafias.”
“The Russians control the casinos, and they would never carry out a hit in one of our buildings without telling us first,” Darius dismissed.
“They might not have known about it if it was some other form of illegal gambling,” Casper added.
Mia gave a shake of her head. “You both make them sound so businesslike.”
“Hence the term organized criminals.” Casper shrugged. “I’ve already contacted Nikolai Volkov, Gregori Markovic’s second. If anyone can answer our questions, it will be Nikolai. He might not have known about the hit before it happened, but he will now. Absolutely nothing happens in this city without the Wolf finding out about it.”
“The Wolf?” Mia echoed warily.
Casper nodded. “It’s what the name Volkov means in Russian. And believe me, Nikolai’s cold viciousness more than lives up to his namesake.”
A shiver ran the length of her spine. “He sounds charming.”
“He does have a certain ruthless charm,” Casper conceded. “But not too many people get beyond the outer icy coldness to know that. In fact, I’m pretty sure that his wife and children are the only ones who really see the gentler side of him. But to get back to this situation,” he added briskly. “There’s always the possibility that Fletcher was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and saw something he shouldn’t have.”
“Like I did,” she realized dully.
“No, not like you did.” Darius came down on his haunches beside her chair before placing one of his hands on top of hers. “No matter what the motive is behind all this, I promise I will protect you.”
Mia turned her hand over to tightly grasp his fingers with hers. “Thank you.” Strangely, touching Darius skin to skin gave her the same feeling of wellbeing as when Honey pressed her warmth against her.
“Whoever did this it was someone with enough money to pay for the hit,” Casper ignored their exchange. “Any professional assassin of worth would have wanted at least fifty grand, possibly more, as there were two of them. Especially as they also had to remove and dispose of the body.”
Mia felt slightly nauseous at hearing someone’s life was worth so little.
“The fact the apartment showed signs of being so thoroughly searched implies those men were looking for something specific,” Casper stated evenly. “That they still took the laptop after they had searched the apartment would seem to indicate they haven’t found it yet.”
Mia frowned her puzzlement. “Why would they kill Giles before knowing that?”
“Maybe he refused to tell them what they wanted to know. Or he could genuinely have had no idea where what they were looking for is.” Casper shrugged. “At this point, we really have no way of knowing any of their motivations, for either the break-in or the murder. Which is my cue to go back down to Fletcher’s apartment and help our team to continue looking. It’s been really nice meeting you, Mia.” He smiled at her warmly. “Even if the circumstances could have been better.”
* * *
“Casper seems nice.”
Darius glanced across to where Mia sat beside him in his black SUV as he drove them to the house she shared so she could collect some of her clothes and books. She was still very pale. He made a note to have something delivered for their dinner once they returned to his apartment.
